IBM Down Despite Reporting Record Earnings (IBM)

International Business Machines Corp.

shares are down in after-hours trading, down more than 2% despite reporting better than expected earnings, and raising its earnings outlook for 2011. The company reported earnings on $2.31 per share on revenues of $24.6 billion. Excluding one-time charges, IBM reported earnings of $2.41 per share. This beat Wall Street estimates of $2.30 per share on revenues of $24.02 billion. In addition to reporting better than expected earnings for the quarter, the company also raised its earnings outlook for 2011, going to at least $13.15 per share, up from its prior outlook of $13 per share. This compares to Wall Street estimates of $13.08 per share. "We delivered a strong first quarter with revenue growth across hardware, software and services and with more than 40 countries growing in double digits," IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano said in a statement. “We delivered a strong first quarter with revenue growth across hardware, software and services and with more than 40 countries growing in double digits. We continued to see excellent momentum in our growth initiatives - smarter planet, cloud, business analytics, and growth markets - which bring together the full value of the IBM portfolio," said Palmisano. One of the notable achievements in the quarter was the comany's Jeopardy-playing supercomputer, dubbed Watson by its creators. The computer is named Watson after the company's founder, Thomas Watson. Despite the earnings beat and guidance raise, shares of IBM are down 60 cents in after hours trading to $164.80, a loss of 0.36%.